How to Find Your Venture's Social Impact Sweet Spot

Millions of entrepreneurs dream of making the world a better place. Social enterprises are on the rise globally, as founders and their teams strive to take on all manner of societal problems—from climate change to income inequality—with the tools of capitalism.

It’s one thing to identify a problem. It’s quite another to figure out a company’s role in solving it. If you establish too broad a mandate, you risk scope creep or promising more than you can effectively deliver. But going too niche might yield negligible results or miss the mark entirely. The “why” of changemaking tends to be simple. It’s the “what” and “how” that can get murky.

Jason Hawkins, BCom‘18, the Vancouver-based CEO and co-founder of Reusables.com, has given this a lot of thought. The problem the startup aims to solve is a big one: The unsustainably massive volume of trash produced by the food service industry. Equally bold is the company’s vision: To waste nothing.

But its approach to actioning these ambitions is decidedly targeted and pragmatic: Reusables.com operates a technology platform that helps institutions (think: universities, airports and hospitals) replace single-use packaging with reusable alternatives and track the impact of that change.

Since launching in 2021, Reusables.com has established (and refined) its core model, commercialized new technologies (such as its smart return bin), and secured milestone clients in Canada and the United States. Their work has caught the attention of Forbes, which placed Hawkins and his co-founder, Anastasia Kiku, on its 2024 30 Under 30 list for social impact. They’re hitting the sweet spot between viability and impact—something much easier to talk about than to do.

Hawkins spoke with Smith Business Insight contributor Deborah Aarts about what’s really involved in a new business finding its impact inflection point.

What drew you to entrepreneurship?

I’ve always been drawn to problem-solving, even at a young age. Growing up, I often admired people who were able to take something from scratch and then make something material out of it—even more so when were able to have an impact. I was especially inspired by Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia—one of the initial innovators in terms of businesses that generate value for shareholders and for the environment.

Everybody has to make money. Everybody has to have a career. I decided at an early age that I might as well work on problems that are going to move the needle in some way, shape or form. Over time, I realized that entrepreneurship is the best vehicle for combining my love for innovation and my desire to contribute to a better world.

There are some who believe that addressing social and environmental problems should fall to governments or NGOs—not corporations. How might you challenge the worldview of those who think the job of a business is to make money?

I’m not sure that I would challenge it. The job of the business is to make money. It’s what capitalism is here for. A company has fiduciary duty to its shareholders and thinks it stops there. I don’t particularly believe in corporate social responsibility. I don’t believe in greenwashing. I don’t believe in storytelling for the sake of it.

But I do think businesses are able to solve societal problems in a faster and more scalable way than governments can, simply by leveraging capitalism to do so. You can use it as a tool to try and drive the change or the solution that you’re looking to create.

How does this outlook manifest at Reusables?

We’re focused on solving a problem. It happens to be a big one, and an environmental one.

My co-founder Anastasia Kiku and I were working at a sustainable online grocery platform called Spud.ca. We were witnessing a large transition to online grocery. A lot of retailers were grappling with plastic: They were trying to understand how to deal with changing regulations, the environmental problem and consumer expectations.

We decided to look at other industries where this problem might exist. We found that there seemed to be a gap in food service operators’ ability to get away from single-use packaging. So, that’s where we started.

Single-use packaging is, indeed, a pretty big problem to solve. Can you walk me through how you built out your solution to it?

Our minimum viable product was made with the restaurant industry in mind. We developed a system for restaurants, cafes and small grocery stores, starting in Vancouver—but then in Seattle and Victoria as well—to be able to offer reusables to their customers. We developed our [RFID] asset-tracking software and started out with Uber Eats and DoorDash—people could order online and return items to any participating location.

How has your model evolved since that pilot phase?

Restaurants are a business-to-consumer marketplace, so in many ways we were having to persuade consumers to change their behaviour, which is an extremely difficult thing to do. 

Our initial hypothesis was based on an assumption that consumer behaviour will change in the near future—because of regulation and because of our influence. We might start with only one per cent of restaurant customers choosing reusables, but as that moved to 10 per cent, and then to 25 per cent, the business model would really start to work.

The tricky part about an assumption like that is that the shift might not happen on the timeline you expect. We realized that it was going to take a lot longer than we thought to hit numbers that were really impactful and interesting. And we realized that, from a business sustainability perspective, that model probably wasn’t going to work.

That can’t be the most fun thing to discover. How did you adapt?

We had to have hard conversations with ourselves and our customers, and we had to make a pivot. Ultimately, we decided to fold our system and asset tracking software into our enterprise offering to institutions in year two. There’s a lot involved in something like that. We had to change some people, our processes, our go-to-market strategy, and some parts of our product. And we had to adapt the brand.

What didn’t you change? 

Because ours was a customer vertical pivot—away from individual restaurants and consumers towards institutions—we didn’t have to change our product.

At a higher level, we’ve upheld a business model that reinforces a core value: To create an environmental impact that also drives revenue. Practically, that has meant tying everything to a North Star metric—which, in our case, is number of reuses—to drive our shareholder value and our environmental impact. That hasn’t changed.

It’s been an interesting journey so far. I can’t say it was all planned. But we learned a lot along the way.

Let’s get into the lessons. What have your experiences taught you about identifying how to make an impact?

This is a really important question, and one that my co-founder and I care a lot about, because it doesn’t get talked about enough at the earliest stages of entrepreneurship.

I’ve learned that before you identify where you can make an impact, you have to ask yourself some very fundamental questions. First, why do you want to start a business, full stop? Second, why do you want to tackle a societal problem with that business? You should have a very clear and unwavering response to that question. It should be very simple answer. And it has to go beyond your ego. 

Once you’re clear on those things, you should then focus on the most important problem at the intersection of your passion, your skills and the world’s needs. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

How can you stress-test the viability of the model—or models—you arrive at?

You can tackle the problems that are interesting to you, but not all at once. Find one that’s most important, based on your unique circumstances, and then spend time researching the issues within that problem space. Engage with those that it impacts. Look for inefficiencies in existing solutions.

I also think you should try to spend at least three months fleshing out the business on paper. There’s a fine balance between jumping in and getting started—which is often the advice that entrepreneurs are given—and doing so in the most cost-effective way possible. This is really important, and something we probably could have done a better job of at the start. If, after a few months, you still feel conviction around the problem, the potential solution and the potential initial customer profile, then I think you can go for it.

There are certainly easier ways to make money than trying to fix major societal issues. Can you make the case for why fellow entrepreneurs should bother?

My experience is that money is rarely enough for the highest performing people in the world. The more important thing is the mission that you’re on and what impact you’re having. That doesn’t have to be a social or environmental impact, by the way.

I believe that when you’re able to do work you’re passionate about, that you’re good at, and that the world needs, you make a difference—especially if you have grit, which I think is the biggest factor for success in entrepreneurship. That’s where you see alignment between pursuing hard things and the rewards that can follow.